Checkered Chevy Chase

Clubhouse Has Seen Some Big Times-and Hidden Others

If you`ve driven on Milwaukee Avenue between Lake-Cook and Deerfield Roads during the last 68 years or so, you`ve passed Chevy Chase Country Club or one of its forebears.

The Tudor-style manor house graces southern Lake County, just over the border of Cook. It`s always been close enough for Chicagoans to go out for an afternoon or evening outing, and in Prohibition days it was far enough away from authorities for high adventure.

Maybe you`ve done more than pass by the sprawling gabled clubhouse, banquet hall and ballroom. Maybe you`ve pulled into the parking lot (paved this year for the first time) for a golf outing. Maybe you attended a banquet during the `80s or `70s, a wedding in the `60s, a prom in the `50s, a Chicago Ward party in the `40s or `30s, or played some Catholic golf in the `20s.

Although the facade of the great gabled lady has remained constant, the amusements offered by its owners have changed with the times, sometimes shadowy, sometimes sublime.

Since July 1, 1977, the Wheeling Park District has managed the golf course and country club. Following the passage of a $3.7 million bond issue, the Park District added Chevy Chase`s 120 acres to its previous holdings of 96 acres. The deal brought with it a faded jumbo building and a weed-choked golf course.

``It was in disrepair when we got it,`` said Karop Bavougian, Park District manager, who makes his headquarters in an oak-paneled Chevy Chase office. ``It would have been nice to take a million dollars and refurbish it all at once.``

Lacking that million dollars, the Park District continues to revitalize and refurbish the club, little by little, year by year. Now weddings, parties, proms, Rotary lunches, golf outings are all back. And back with them are guests from previous years and previous outings, who find the place teeming with memories.

``Chevy Chase today echoes all those events that were in this building. I think it`s great that the Park District bought it and restored it. I`ve talked to so many people who have come here for weddings in the past. And generations of the same families have had their weddings here.``

To trace the course of the country club back through more than six decades is an adventure in itself: Some existing documents contain

contradictions, and missing documents create gaps.

Conventional wisdom, as well as a 1981 Wheeling Historical Society document, indicate that the original golf course, called Columbian Gardens and Country Club, was developed between 1917 and 1923 and was owned by the Knights of Columbus, though the K of C says it didn`t.

Verstraete said an original two-story building was completed in 1923 and burned down in 1976, one year before the Park District bought the property.

Columbian Gardens was one of the early developments in which homes were planned around a golf course. The special interest group that these particular developers targeted were Catholics.

An ad in a 1928 edition of the Knights of Columbus newspaper advertised the place as exclusively for Catholics. Restrictive membership was also the basis of rival Medinah Country Club, conceived about the same time.

But contrary to conventional wisdom, the Knights of Columbus says it never owned the golf course. John Hughes, who handles public relations for the Knights of Columbus in Illinois, said, ``Columbian Gardens was owned by an outside group of guys who said, `Let`s make this an all-Catholic club.```

He said the ad for Columbian Gardens and Country Club was placed in the organization`s paper back then by a Chicago realty company.

Apparently individual Knights were involved in various aspects of the development, Hughes said. ``But the Knights of Columbus owned only one country club. It was in Twin Lakes, Wis., the Commodore Perry Country Club.``

Alfred Bertucci, 75, of Highland Park caddied at Columbian in the late

`20s. Later he was superintendent of the Old Elm Golf Club in Highland Park from 1958 to 1980. ``Columbian was a nice golf course, brand new,`` Bertucci said. ``It had a long layout, yardage wise, with short greens. Pretty much like it is today.``

Bertucci also thought the Knights of Columbus owned it. He said the men and women he caddied for were mostly small-business people, good tippers and Catholic. The grounds had a pro shop, caddy shack, small swimming pool and clubhouse.

Sometime in 1928, during Prohibition, the country club was sold to William ``Big Bill`` Johnson and William ``Billy`` Skidmore. Over the next two years, additions to the clubhouse included the ballroom, several main-floor dining rooms, private rooms upstairs and a labyrinthine basement with dressing rooms, storage areas, numerous stairways and some tunnels.

Bon Aire Country Club, as Skidmore and Johnson called it, flourished as a night spot through the `30s, `40s and into the `50s. And what a night spot.